One Million Installs!

Published on 2025-09-18 by Stuart Spence

chesscraft 1 million

Wow! How about that. Do I get a gold plaque from YouTube now? I still remember celebrating 100,000 in 2021:

chesscraft 100k

And if we really go back, 100 in 2019:

chesscraft 100

I guess I like round numbers. If you haven't passed it yet, I recommend celebrating your one billion second birthday …

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Why I'm declining your AI generated MR

Published on 2025-08-26 by Stuart Spence

ai slop soup nazi

Sometimes a merge request (MR) doesn't merit a code review (CR) because AI was used in a bad way that harms the team or the project. For example:

  1. Code deletion would improve the MR a lot.
  2. You don't know the basics of the language you submitted.
  3. Documentation spam.
  4. Blatantly inconsistent …

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Finding a Job: Build Something Real

Published on 2025-07-13 by Stuart Spence

I often see these questions online:

"I have no work experience. How do I get my first software job?"

"I got laid off with only have 2 years of experience. How do I get a software job?"

"What certs can help me get a software job?"

I'm a team lead …

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Empowering public servant managers with displacements

Published on 2024-09-22 by Stuart Spence

Sometimes my friends, family, colleagues, or online communities ask me this question:

"If you could wave a magic wand to make one change in public service, what would it be?"

I'd create a new tool for managers in government called "displacement". Here's how it works.

Disclaimer

The opinions here are …

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My three months vacation this summer

Published on 2024-08-02 by Stuart Spence

After some big disappointments at Environment Canada, I decided to take three months off in May, June, and July of 2024. Now that my time off is coming to a close I thought it would be nice to jot down all the nice ways I got to spend my time …

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